My first drive down Highway 1, properly called State Route 1, was during the summer of 2007. My two best friends and I constructed a loft bed in our van and we took off driving down the coast… from the tip of Oregon and, eventually, down to San Diego. Images from the trip, in my mind and in my photo albums, have regularly sent me into a west coast reverie. Now that my most recent birthday is fresh under my belt, I think I spent the celebratory weekend well: driving up Highway 1 this time.

I didn’t get to go far, but the picturesque drive is one for the savoring, no matter how short. So I savored what I could get. My first attempt at driving up the Highway 1 was cut short because of flooding. When I approached the highway the second time, I nervously drove my uninsured rented car through a foot or two of moving water and I crossed my fingers, hoping that’d be the last of the flooding. And, for the most part, it was. And then I spent a day driving up the coast, trying to keep my eyes on the road.
For the sixth day in a row, incessant rain had been predicted. But the sun came instead of the rain that day and photographer Ben Britz and I drove. And we stopped to take photos. And we continued driving and stopping until the sun went down. Here are some of the photos from the trip.